In today's industrialized world, oil, gas and water pipe lines criss-cross over every part and every corner of the earth. These pipe lines represent a huge amount of capital investment, as the cost of the pipes and the expense of their installation add up to millions of millions of dollars. The single most common problem with these pipe lines is the leak at the joints between pipe sections. As the pipe lines are often stretched across remote areas of poor accessibility, leaks of pipe joints are very expensive failures in view that it takes a great deal of time and resources to detect and repair the leaks. The primary cause of pipe joint failure arises from the failure of the gasket or corrosion of the pipe flanges. Therefore, in order to protect the large amount of investment in the pipe lines, it is imperative to use premium quality pipe flange gaskets, which provide leak proof seals almost indefinitely and protect the pipe flanges from corrosion caused by the ground electric currents and by the galvanic electric currents flowing across the pipe flange joints.
In the present day pipe line industry, there are many different types of dielectric pipe flange gaskets in the market. With few exceptions, these existing dielectric pipe flange gaskets use soft dielectric materials either alone or lining a metallic annular disc. The soft dielectric materials can be over-compressed by over-torqueing the tie rods joining the pipe flanges during installation of the pipe flange joints, which over-compression creates plastic flow of the soft dielectric materials and damages the ring type seals confined in the seal grooves by squeezing action and, consequently, results in leak at the flange joint. There are existing dielectric pipe flange gaskets made of single dielectric plate of high modulus of elesticity. Those pipe flange gaskets made of high modulus/hard dielectric materials are susceptible to wicking of contained media in the pipe through the gasket. These gaskets can be cracked by over-torqueing, yet require high bolt torques to establish the leak proof flange joints. Further, because the insulating capabilities of the dielectric gaskets are a direct function of gasket thickness, these use a single dielectric plate of significant thickness, which is vulnerable to blowout and leakage. As temperatures and pressure increase, thinner is better for gasket function and reliability. However, thicker is better for insulating characteristics. This dichotomy is satisfied by the design and function of the laminated design employed in the present invention.